Comments for linda's Webloghttps://lgonse.wordpress.com
speaking from the heartFri, 10 May 2013 17:01:12 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.com/Comment on Babies with feathers by clarissasmithhttps://lgonse.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/babies-babies-babies/#comment-23
Fri, 10 May 2013 17:01:12 +0000http://lgonse.wordpress.com/?p=634#comment-23“Keep distance….”: Yeah, birds are changeable. It’s good that you remind me of that. Miss G tends to censor what I say. There are words she doesn’t like. I’m not allowed to say “clarinet”, probably because she’s kinda jealous and thinks I should care about her instead for the clarinet. Which reminds me of human relationships: “You and always your darn music, can’t ya care more about me?!”

The color yellow is the red rag, probably because it’s beak color and this is a powerful symbol: Firstly a weapon, secondly a sexual symbol which color get much brighter each spring. So this is a taboo. On the other side she like yellow, preferring the yolk, so I feed her the white of an egg first. We had discussions over that rule for years, but finally she excepted it. “First you eat the white, then you get the yolk.” But generally she’s stubborn and whenever I try to force something and she starts crying, she wins. Because she’s not giving up and flat-out refuses to kick the depression. So, before she decides to die or whatsoever, I have to use diplomacy.

I had to learn the ability to stop her hating me. She basically loves me and trusts me, but sometimes finds a reason to hate me. I break that with gentle words, “fine” works always best — I can really talk her to be a sunny girl again. I can talk her from being grumpy to obviously feeling happy and asking for being cuddled. But sometimes I just leave her alone. That’s probably when I’m grumpy too. LOL

My neighbor rescued a dog, which never learned to accept being alone at home. This man is like a gentle father, takes his dog anywhere. But sometimes he goes to a doctor or whatever and the dog cries his heart out like nuts. Miss G looks critically if I tell her I gotta go shopping, but she tolerates it after all. I always add, “I won’t be long,” naming the kinds of food she actually likes. And whenever I return, I give account and she carefully watches what I pack into the refrigerator. I do control her, but she controls me too. LOL

A 19 years old relationship should function, and actually it does. It’s old love now.

]]>Comment on Babies with feathers by clarissasmithhttps://lgonse.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/babies-babies-babies/#comment-22
Fri, 10 May 2013 16:31:01 +0000http://lgonse.wordpress.com/?p=634#comment-22I still remember the day when the vet told me she would never be able to fly, after a joint’s swelling was gone but she still couldn’t stretch the wing entirely. He said, “Now we have two possibilities : either you keep on caring for her, or I have to euthanize her.” It was no question, I already loved her too much. But there were moments when I started crying, because I felt it was too much of a challenge.

But finally it showed, it was NOT a greater problem than having something like a parrot and I get much easier along with her than with the cat I once had. She obeys much better!

The mistake I made in the first place was not to try it with common bird sand, so I was so dumb to keep her on newspapers for a long time. Newspapers of course don’t absorb as well as bird sand. You pretty much have to change them all the time.

On ‘her’ blog you see her blue tub, a hardware shop ordered for me directly from China. I’m not for buying Chinese stuff, but this was the biggest one I was able to get (actually designed for bunnies). Since I fill that one with two bags of bird sand, nicely smelling of anise, it’s really easy to keep her. And it’s much easier to keep clean, than a cat toilet.

Actually it’s somewhat is like having a cat or a dog. She’s desperately meowing while I fill her feeding dish. And before she’s barking each time I ask her whether she’s hungry. All her sounds are to hear on ‘her’ blog, in a YouTube screen on the dashboard.

That was the actual reason why we went on YouTube and started the blog: I want to share my experience, that it can really be very easy to keep a seagull. And this probably goes for other birds of that size as well. Other people can have a much easier start than I had.

By the way, I recorded the bird babies little cheeps at feeding time and was thinking I might add to the WordPress article. I just have to take time to figure out how to get it out of my iPhone.

I read a story a couple of years ago about a woman who took a barn owl in and kept it as a pet. It was a big commitment on her part, as I am certain you have made as well. Having a large bird that doesn’t need a cage is a life changing experience. They absolutely are children – with feathers.

I know just a small part of that commitment having had a cockatiel that was rescued from a group of boys tossing it around like a football. Eventually, due to my working full time and having one child and two grandchildren in the house to care for, we found a loving home for her. The man worked with my husband and he and his wife had no children. Just a couple of lovebirds, offspring of my Georgie and Jasmine. So the wife, especially, was ecstatic to get LaLa.

LaLa was sweet and did funny things in the course of her days. But she was also very demanding. I was, at times, both the willing and unwilling slave she expected to fetch her some pasta, scratch her head, talk to her, give her a new toy, etc. I did not realize birds could be temperamental..

I already knew from Georgie that they were not cheerful and perky all the time, either. Some days he just had that look in his eye and I knew I’d better keep a distance. It was something I learned from painful experience! 🙂

]]>Comment on Babies with feathers by clarissasmithhttps://lgonse.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/babies-babies-babies/#comment-20
Thu, 09 May 2013 23:03:59 +0000http://lgonse.wordpress.com/?p=634#comment-20Herring gull babies’ begging for food has the pitch of a very high whistle. Half a year later or so they get a much deeper voice. Then they make really deep squawks.
Maybe she was wondering too, when she suddenly had that changed voice. She did that one squawk and I had to wait several days until she did it again.
]]>Comment on Babies with feathers by lgonsehttps://lgonse.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/babies-babies-babies/#comment-19
Thu, 09 May 2013 22:16:01 +0000http://lgonse.wordpress.com/?p=634#comment-19Oh! That is funny! Did it frighten her, too? I never gave it a thought that birds might go through puberty! 🙂
]]>Comment on Babies with feathers by clarissasmithhttps://lgonse.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/babies-babies-babies/#comment-18
Thu, 09 May 2013 13:22:13 +0000http://lgonse.wordpress.com/?p=634#comment-18By the way, the British zoologist Nigel Marven even speaks about “t-rex babies”. I don’t humanize Miss G, but nevertheless she is my child. She had lost her parents and I adopted her, like other animals also adopt other species.
]]>Comment on Babies with feathers by clarissasmithhttps://lgonse.wordpress.com/2012/06/22/babies-babies-babies/#comment-17
Thu, 09 May 2013 13:07:31 +0000http://lgonse.wordpress.com/?p=634#comment-17Love that: “The cheeps turn into chirps….”
I remember the time when Miss G’s voice broke. I was busy in the kitchen and suddenly she did a deep *quaaak* that sounded fairly human: It frightened me to death, for I didn’t expect anything like this, and although never believed in ghosts I wasn’t sure about it at this moment. LOL
]]>Comment on Fleeting thoughts by Steve Costellohttps://lgonse.wordpress.com/other-people/#comment-16
Fri, 02 Nov 2012 13:03:33 +0000http://lgonse.wordpress.com/?page_id=101#comment-16I have started two of my own WordPress.com blogs just recently.
One for creative writing and book reviews (sefccw.wordpress.com), and one for Computers, Technology, and User Groups (sefcug.wordpress.com).
Both have about pages and a link to my About.me page.

I too have found that a lot of people do not include an about page, or at least a link to About.me, or something similar, where you can get an idea of what they are all about.

]]>Comment on In Memory Of…All Of Them by lgonsehttps://lgonse.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/in-memory-of/#comment-15
Thu, 24 May 2012 04:08:30 +0000http://lgonse.wordpress.com/?p=592#comment-15Thank you so much. I wrote this because a friend asked me what was a special memory I had of Memorial Day. By the time I had written my notes and gathered the pictures together, it was a full-fledged article. So, I posted it.
]]>Comment on In Memory Of…All Of Them by notsofancynancyhttps://lgonse.wordpress.com/2012/05/23/in-memory-of/#comment-14
Thu, 24 May 2012 02:00:51 +0000http://lgonse.wordpress.com/?p=592#comment-14What an awesome way to honor our service people! I admire and thank you for doing this.